Michael Morpurgo - Flamingo Boy

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2018

Jacket photographs © Maria Castellanos/Shutterstock (flying flamingos); Stefano Garau/Shutterstock (front cover flamingo); Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock (flying flamingos at sunrise); blickwinkel/Alamy Stock Photo (bull); Christian Hütter/Alamy Stock Photo (flamingo frieze); Pixelheld/Shutterstock (dunes); gyn9037/Shutterstock (dark clouds); bepsy/Shutterstock (swamp); saranya33/Shutterstock (sunset); Sergey Uryadnikov/Shutterstock (Camargue horses); Nataliya Hora/Shutterstock (carousel); Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel (boy)

Jacket design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Cover image of Flamingo Boy written by Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008134631

Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008134662

Version: 2018-09-04

For Alan, for Lorens, and their mum and dad

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2018 Jacket photographs © Maria Castellanos/Shutterstock (flying flamingos); Stefano Garau/Shutterstock (front cover flamingo); Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock (flying flamingos at sunrise); blickwinkel/Alamy Stock Photo (bull); Christian Hütter/Alamy Stock Photo (flamingo frieze); Pixelheld/Shutterstock (dunes); gyn9037/Shutterstock (dark clouds); bepsy/Shutterstock (swamp); saranya33/Shutterstock (sunset); Sergey Uryadnikov/Shutterstock (Camargue horses); Nataliya Hora/Shutterstock (carousel); Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel (boy) Jacket design © HarperCollins Publishers 2018 Cover image of Flamingo Boy written by Michael Morpurgo Michael Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008134631 Ebook Edition © 2018 ISBN: 9780008134662 Version: 2018-09-04

Dedication For Alan, for Lorens, and their mum and dad

Chapter 1: Someone Called Vincent

Chapter 2: My Near-death Experience

Chapter 3: The Long, Straight Road to Nowhere

Chapter 4: Renzo Renzo

Chapter 5: A Complete Flamingo

Chapter 6: How it Was, How We Were

Chapter 7: The Charbonneau Carousel

Chapter 8: Rousel Rousel!

Chapter 9: Fly, Flamingo, Fly

Chapter 10: We Live For That

Chapter 11: Occupation

Chapter 12: Be Proud and Carry On

Chapter 13: The Day the Music Died

Chapter 14: A New Dawn

Chapter 15: Not in Front of Lorenzo

Chapter 16: Grette Grette

Chapter 17: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Chapter 18: Missing, Gone!

Chapter 19: Killing Dragons

Chapter 20: Agon Agon!

Chapter 21: Patience is a Virtue

Chapter 22: An Accident, A Casualty

Chapter 23: Like a Miracle

Chapter 24: Flying Lessons

Chapter 25: Trust

Chapter 26: They Will Be Back

Chapter 27: A Light in the Darkness

Chapter 28: A Knock at the Door

Chapter 29: Free at Last! Free Again!

Chapter 30: Old Years Pass, New Years Come

Chapter 31: Last Words

Also by Michael Morpurgo

About the Publisher

With thanks to Anne-Sophie Deville who first introduced us to her flamingos and to the beauty and mystery of her beloved Camargue

I read it ina book once, when I was a boy. I don’t remember what book it was from, but the story I have never forgotten. An old traveller is sitting on the steps of his gypsy caravan, drinking a mug of tea in the sunshine. He’s stopped for a while, right in the middle of a roundabout, his tethered piebald horse grazing the grass verge nearby.

A police car pulls up. “You can’t stop here,” the policeman says.

“Morning, son,” says the traveller. “You want some tea? Got plenty to spare.” The policeman is rather nonplussed by this. No one has called him “son” for a very long time, and he rather likes it.

“No time to stop for tea,” he says. “Thanks all the same. Where are you going, you and your horse?”

“Not sure,” says the traveller. “The old horse and me, we just follow the bend in the road, go wherever it takes us.”

“Nice horse,” the policeman says, his tone softening all the time.

“And where might you be off to, son, this fine day?” the old traveller asks him.

“Maybe I’ll do what you do,” replies the policeman. “Maybe I’ll just follow the bend in the road. Sounds like a good idea.” And off he goes, knowing full well he should have moved the old traveller on, but glad he hadn’t.

I don’t know why, but I have never forgotten that story. I am older these days, a lot older – over fifty now. And, when I think about it, I suppose that in my own way I was trying to do just what the old traveller had done, what that policeman said he would like to do. I was following the bend in the road. That’s what I was setting out to do, in the summer of 1982, which was a long time ago now, but I remember it all, as if it were yesterday. It’s another story I don’t forget. You don’t forget the stories and the people who change your life.

It began with a picture, a painting, two paintings really. In Art class at my primary school, Miss Weatherby – who was the best teacher I ever had – told us one day to “paint a story”. So I painted a picture of that same old traveller sitting on the steps of his gypsy caravan, his piebald horse grazing the grass nearby, and there was a police car in the painting too. I gave it a title, wrote it at the top: “Following the Bend in the Road”. Miss Weatherby said it was the best painting I had ever done – she said that a lot, but she meant it every time. I took it home. My mother also said it was brilliant, so brilliant that I should sign it, and she would hang it up on the wall in my bedroom, in pride of place, next to my boat picture.